Arctic Monkeys say ‘it’s our duty’ to keep guitar music alive

Band reveal they released 'Don't Sit Down…' as a single to keep guitar-based music on the radio

Arctic Monkeys have said they feel it’s their duty to keep guitar music alive and being played on mainstream radio.

Speaking to Shortlist, the band also revealed that the main reason they opted to release ‘Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair’ as the lead single from ‘Suck It And See’ was because it was one of “the most guitar-heavy” tunes on the album.

Asked if they agreed with Liam Gallagher‘s comments that guitar music was currently in the doldrums, singer Alex Turner replied:

Definitely. But that’s all the more reason for us to play at V Festival and be right in the middle of all that. It will come back around. People ask us why we released ‘Don’t Sit Down…’ as the first single, because it’s not the poppiest one on there — it’s really guitar-heavy. But because we’ve got that fanbase and we’re one of the guitar bands that have a shot of getting on the radio in the daytime, I almost feel like it’s our job to put that sort of tune out.

Turner added that the band were not against pop music dominating the charts, but they believed it was important that they were at the centre of it, playing guitar-led music.

He added:

When you talk about pop music dominating. It’s not like it’s all shit and we’re dead against it. That’s not the case at all, because there are some great pop songs. Some of it is nonsense, but it’s not like we’re completely trying to destroy it. And if we do V Festival we can get right into the nucleus.

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Arctic Monkeys headline V Festival this weekend. Check NME.COM for a full report from their live set on Saturday night (August 20).